{"id":26576,"date":"2025-04-08T05:23:39","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T05:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/report-finds-quarter-of-police-vehicles-are-a-decade-old\/"},"modified":"2025-04-08T05:23:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T05:23:39","slug":"report-finds-quarter-of-police-vehicles-are-a-decade-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/report-finds-quarter-of-police-vehicles-are-a-decade-old\/","title":{"rendered":"Report finds quarter of police vehicles are a decade old"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Julian O’Neill<\/span><\/p>\n

BBC News NI crime and justice correspondent<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"BBCBBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Between 2021 and 2024, the cost of repairs and maintenance for police vehicles at inhouse workshops was almost \u00a311m.<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Almost a quarter of police vehicles are more than ten years old, with an increasing number stuck in repair shops, a report by the Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) has found.<\/p>\n

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has a fleet of 2,700 vehicles which clock up 27 million miles a year.<\/p>\n

It told the NIAO there are significant pressures in providing vehicles for frontline services, whilst it also “recognises the potential safety risks associated with an older fleet”.<\/p>\n

Between 2021 and 2024, the cost of repairs and maintenance completed at inhouse workshops was almost \u00a311m.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"PSNIPSNI<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The proportion of the fleet in workshops on any given day has risen from 6% to 16%<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The proportion of the fleet in workshops on any given day has risen from 6% to 16%.<\/p>\n

The NIAO said “at its most extreme”, almost 500 vehicles were off the road at a given time.<\/p>\n

Four years ago, the PSNI launched a strategy setting out plans for the modernisation of its fleet, with the ambition for the average age of vehicles to be five years.<\/p>\n

But this has not been achievable, with most vehicles exceeding the target.<\/p>\n

Almost \u00a326m has been spent on purchasing new vehicles since 2021.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

PSNI fleet management ‘critical’ <\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Commenting on the report, Northern Ireland’s Comptroller and Auditor General Dorinnia Carville said effective fleet management is “critical” for the PSNI.<\/p>\n

She added: “Achieving the planned fleet replenishment rates within the current financial environment will be challenging, however, managing an ageing fleet is also costly, with potentially significant operational impacts.<\/p>\n

“This report finds that progress has been made in a number of areas but that there is much more to be achieved, particularly in relation to the introduction of electric vehicles.”<\/p>\n

The PSNI had planned to have around 700 electric vehicles by next year.<\/p>\n

As of last October it had 179.<\/p>\n

Electric vehicles are said to be unsuitable for many roles within the PSNI, including an inability to carry the weight of armouring.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Julian O’Neill BBC News NI crime and justice correspondent BBC Between 2021 and 2024, the cost of repairs and maintenance for police vehicles at inhouse workshops was almost \u00a311m. Almost a quarter of police vehicles are more than ten years old, with an increasing number stuck in repair shops, a report by the Northern Ireland […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[1277,3374,599,9101,1420,9439],"class_list":["post-26576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-n-ireland","tag-decade","tag-finds","tag-police","tag-quarter","tag-report","tag-vehicles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26576"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26578,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26576\/revisions\/26578"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}